Impact Assessment of ICT-for-Development Projects: A Compendium of Approaches

Saturday 6 June 2009

Richard Heeks & Alemayehu Molla

Abstract

Billions of US dollars are invested each year by the public, NGO and private sectors in information-and-communication-technologies-for-development (ICT4D) projects such as telecentres, village phone schemes, e-health and e-education projects, e-government kiosks, etc.
Yet we have very little sense of the effect of that investment. Put simply, there is far too little impact assessment of ICT4D projects.
In part that reflects a lack of political will and motivation. But in part it also reflects a lack of knowledge about how to undertake impact assessment of ICT4D.
This Compendium aims to address that lack of knowledge. It presents a set of frameworks that can be used by ICT4D practitioners, policy-makers and consultants to understand the impact of informatics initiatives in developing countries.
The Compendium is arranged into three parts:

Overview – explains the basis for understanding impact assessment of ICT4D projects, and the different assessment frameworks that can be used.

Frameworks – summarises a series of impact assessment frameworks, each one drawing from a different perspective.